Does any of you have any ideas as to how to breakdown a 1-3-1 zone defense and to make it competitive or just for the slides? what I have done in the past was to work different players at a time, for example I would just work on the point man and the 2 wings vs stationary offensive players moving the ball. I find that it is good for teaching the slides but it doesn't quite become competitive.

I do a couple of drills for my 1-3-1 extended zone defense. The first drill is an umbrella trap drill where we work on an umbrella trap with my wing, middle and point man on dribble penetration to the middle when a team goes 2-1-2. We also break down the drill with our baseline, middle, and wing player to simulate a middle and baseline drive or middle drive. Penetration is one thing we are susceptible to in our defense. The second drill we do is a drill called "piston" drill where I put two players up to and two players on the block( simulating 2-1-2 ). I put my two wings and my point man at the top. The offense is stationary and we work on our wing rotation from on the ball to covering the low block and taking away the long diagonal pass. Our point man must be in line with the guard to guard pass to allow the wing the necessary time to recover to the block. Our rule is as one wing goes up the other must go back like a piston. The third drill we do is a 5 vs 4 disadvantage drill where our wings, baseline and point play defense against 5 players in various alignments. You can vary it up depending on how teams attack you...I sometimes put three players low to simulate a baseline runner or teams that try to screen our baseline player. Hope this helps. Email me at rhamilton@mountstmary.org if you want any additional information.